Digital Marketing – SEO, Social Media & Engagement

Google’s Stance on Guest #Blogging Flies in the Face of the Purpose of the Internet

Good old Google and Matt Cutts have finally gone after guest blogging. They claim it is SPAMMY and is dead. Another narrow minded reaction to something that is really good for the Internet. Guest blogging enables community and fosters the sharing of knowledge. In the beginning, Google espoused their passion for the Internet and that is was the PRIMARY solution for sharing knowledge and empowering the world.

Cutts was coy on the outcome of a guest blogging link back to your site; will your site be penalized or will the link have zero value. However, he was pretty clear about Google’s position:

So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy.

If Google does penalize a site for guest blogging it nukes the idea of sharing information and will force a publisher to either produce content solely for their site or for the big and “legitimate” sites like CNN, Huffington Post, Search Engine Land and Mashable. It is doubtful a link back from one of those sites will harm your site because they are at the top of the pecking order.

This reaction also clearly damages Google’s audacious goal of assigning authority to an individual publisher in the form of Authorship. Or it just proves that Google wants to limit the vast world of the Internet. They are essentially forcing you to stay on your own site or publishing on a big site. Potentially be harmed by publishing on a smaller lesser known site or only publish on a “safe” site.

Well I am going to continue being a good Internet citizen and share my knowledge here and on other sites. If I am penalized because I reference myself with a link to my site rather than to my Google+ profile oh well.